[syslinux] Problems booting from cd
Ian Leonard
ian at smallworld.cx
Wed May 10 00:35:59 PDT 2006
Nazo wrote:
> On 5/4/06, Ian Leonard <ian at smallworld.cx> wrote:
>> Nazo wrote:
[ snip ]
>
> Can you try one on a rewritable witout the translation tables (-T) and
> maybe even without the Rock-Ridge (just for testing)? That's about
> the only difference I see. I do think that --no-emul-boot and
> --boot-load-size 4 are probably just redundancies, but, with something
> so sensitive relying on standards that BIOS manufacturers will never
> 100% support I would imagine that you should do all you can to help,
> and including those probably wouldn't be a bad idea. By the way,
> which isolinux are you using? I'm wondering if you should try using
> the other one whichever it is (eg, if using debug, try standard, if
> using standard, try debug.) In the documentation Mr. Anvin recommends
> using the debug version because it adds very little delay while having
> the obvious advantage of adding the occasional debugging information,
> so, in particular, if you're using the standard you should really try
> the debug version and see if it gives you any info that could possibly
> be useful. Here's a suggestion. If you have a floppy drive, place a
> non-bootable disk in it, then set your BIOS to boot the floppy drive
> before the CD-ROM. This way you will be able to see any error
> messages or whatever that may occur before any bootloaders on your
> harddrive take over the screen since the bios will stop with some
> error message informing you the disk isn't bootable and wait for
> interaction.
I finally have a 'workaround'. This has been a nightmare and I still
don't really have an explanation. We have three types of m/board. An old
one (Abit), one we have been using for a few years (ITOX) and a new one
(also an ITOX). The old and new failed to boot, the other was fine.
As suggested above I removed the -T and the -J options (did not use
--boot-load-size, etc). I also changed to Verbatum CD-R disks. The new
combination booted on all three m/boards.
I added the -J option again and it booted on the old Abit, the old ITOX
but not the new ITOX.
I can live with the cd not being read on Windows, therefore I have a
solution. However, I don't know what is really happening. My best guess
is this:
I read, on this list, that someone had this problem if they had too many
files on the CD. Since one of the things I had done was to add files,
this could be a reason. However I did remove these files and rebuild the
cd's but it still didn't work. It could be that I had some bad media or
just made a mistake. Assuming this is the case, removing the -T would
not write the TRANS.TBL files, this reducing the number of files. It
doesn't explain the issue with the -J though.
These disks are custom RedHat 7.3 disks using kickstart. There are two
disks in the set so I could find a way to force more files to the second
cd. I could also rebuild the boot image using the debug version of
syslinux. The question is do I have the stamina for it:-)
If anyone has suggestions as to what the real issue might be, I would be
please to hear from them.
--
Ian Leonard
Please ignore spelling and punctuation - I did.
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